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Tuesday, May 24, 2011, 09:05 am
Apple's iOS App Store reaches a half-million approved apps - report
This week, Apple is believed to have crossed a major milestone, having approved more than 500,000 applications for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.148apps, Chomp and Chillingo on Tuesday sent out a large infographic to commemorate the achievement, revealing that the average price for an application is $3.64, while 37 percent of all applications are free. Though Apple is believed to have approved more than 500,000 applications, the amount of active applications available in the App Store is roughly 400,000.
The stats also reveal that it would cost $891,982.24 and over 7 terabytes to get all applications available in the App Store. And unsurprisingly, top-selling paid application by far is Angry Birds, which has held the No. 1 spot for 275 total days.
In comparison, Google's Android Market has about 294,000 applications, and 3 billion application downloads.
The website 148apps, search company Chomp and developer Chillingo have set up an official Facebook page to commemorate the 500,000 applications. The chart also reveals there are 85,569 unique developers, with an average of 4.6 applications per developer.
Apple hasn't yet made any announcements about App Store milestones, but is likely to do so at this year's Worldwide Developers Conference starting June 6 in San Francisco. At the five-day conference, Apple has promised to "unveil the future of iOS and Mac OS," both of which now have their own App Stores.
Apple has trumpeted a number of achievements for the App Store since it got off to a quick start in 2008. By late 2009, the number of applications available for download topped 100,000, and this January, Apple reached 10 billion downloads of software from the App Store.
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Previous Comments View All
It seems odd that they include 100,000 apps that don't exist in the total.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jd_in_sb 
It seems odd that they include 100,000 apps that don't exist in the total.
It seems odd that they include 100,000 apps that don't exist in the total.
It's only a total of apps that have been approved. Apps that were previously approved may have been pulled by devs, by Apple, or may still be waiting to simply be launched in the App Store, but there's a difference between approved apps and total apps in the store.
Okay, now how many of those are fart apps, wallpapers, or smurfberry peddling freemium horseshit? 
Quality > Quantity
Too much for me to filter...I rely on MacWorld to suggest the Apps I buy.
The best App I've purchased is also the highest price I paid ($35) Tom Tom GPS. No stand alone GPS unit to mess with!
Also, for running the Nike+GPS is pretty cool.
It is great that there is so many apps, but i feel sometimes that there is to much choice.
And as one of those 83 thousand developers my self. I see the other side of the coin as well. Mainly, you can have an awesome app with an awesome concept, yet it is almost impossible to get anyone to buy your app because its lost in the mass of other apps.
That coupled with the fact that you are not allowed to change the tags of the app after it has been submitted can pose some serious constraints.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Urinal Mint
Okay, now how many of those are fart apps, wallpapers, or smurfberry peddling freemium horseshit?
Quality > Quantity
Okay, now how many of those are fart apps, wallpapers, or smurfberry peddling freemium horseshit?
Quality > Quantity
Do you even own an iPhone? The only way to get a fart app is to explicitly search for it, by word, because they are buried so far down that it would take you days to find it just by browsing. And as far as wallpapers are concerned, There are apps that give you multiple (usually thousands) or wallpapers to choose from, unlike on Android, where one wallpaper can be considered an app (as it steals all of your contact information).
I will agree with you on the Smurf and FarmVille stuff, though. For some reason, though, people enjoy that stuff. The cream always rises. Just look at the top 25 paid apps, almost all of those are very high quality. Plus, Apple usually promotes pretty good and useful apps and games in their App of the Week and Game of the Week promotions, too. I would definitely say quality outshines quantity by a mile in the App Store.
Of the hundreds of thousands of apps in each the App Store and Android Market, how many in each would you say are quality apps?
Quote:
Originally Posted by kenmadsen
It is great that there is so many apps, but i feel sometimes that there is to much choice.
And as one of those 83 thousand developers my self. I see the other side of the coin as well. Mainly, you can have an awesome app with an awesome concept, yet it is almost impossible to get anyone to buy your app because its lost in the mass of other apps.
That coupled with the fact that you are not allowed to change the tags of the app after it has been submitted can pose some serious constraints.
It is great that there is so many apps, but i feel sometimes that there is to much choice.
And as one of those 83 thousand developers my self. I see the other side of the coin as well. Mainly, you can have an awesome app with an awesome concept, yet it is almost impossible to get anyone to buy your app because its lost in the mass of other apps.
That coupled with the fact that you are not allowed to change the tags of the app after it has been submitted can pose some serious constraints.
As far as the tags go, I don't get why Apple does that either. If you update your app and add functionality or features that weren't previously there, you should be able to add a tag to reference that.
As far as exposure, look into finding ways to get your app on the New or What's Hot pages of the App Store. I don't know exactly how that process works, though. Do developers pay money (I doubt it)? Is it random (Probably not)? Does it use an unknown algorithm (Maybe)? Does Steve Jobs find something he likes and tells them to put it there (Wouldn't surprise me)?
I'm not yet, but am looking into getting into app development, so if anyone has any idea about that stuff, it'd be appreciated.
Quote:
Originally Posted by christopher126
Too much for me to filter...I rely on MacWorld to suggest the Apps I buy.
The best App I've purchased is also the highest price I paid ($35) Tom Tom GPS. No stand alone GPS unit to mess with!
Also, for running the Nike+GPS is pretty cool.
Too much for me to filter...I rely on MacWorld to suggest the Apps I buy.
The best App I've purchased is also the highest price I paid ($35) Tom Tom GPS. No stand alone GPS unit to mess with!
Also, for running the Nike+GPS is pretty cool.
Nike+GPS is free at the moment. http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/nike-...387771637?mt=8
Quote:
Originally Posted by Urinal Mint
Okay, now how many of those are fart apps, wallpapers, or smurfberry peddling freemium horseshit?
Quality > Quantity
Okay, now how many of those are fart apps, wallpapers, or smurfberry peddling freemium horseshit?
Quality > Quantity
About as many, if not less than the malware, Trojan, phishing apps that are available in the Android Marketplace.
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It's interesting that Apple has shifted away from playing the numbers game, as they don't even mention the number of apps on the store like they used to. Now that the App Store is solidly on its feet, they have shifted back to the core of Apple's philosophy: the experience. From finding, to buying, to using, to knowing that anything coming from the App Store is not going to harm your device (or you), Apple is making it known now that, yes, they have tons of apps, but that's not the point. The point is that the experience with our App Store and our apps is going to be so much more superior.